“Hurry-up Syndrome” 1

[…]“Today I had a problem with my landing gear on takeoff. It failed to retract; in fact it didn’t even leave the down-and-locked position. We tried cycling the handle a few times but no response. We checked circuit breakers, electrical busses, etc., all to no avail. After we determined that the gear was down and locked, we called the tower and returned for landing. What I found so interesting about this situation was how closely the events mirrored the air carrier crash in the Florida Everglades. The student was flying and I began working on the problem and then so did he. After a while I realized that no one was really flying the plane, and I told the student to fly the plane and I would work on the problem. Thank goodness we broke the chain or the situation could have turned into something worse, such as unexpected contact with terrain” (ASRS 1993a).

General aviation pilots can also fall prey to the same hazardous attitudes that confront military and commercial aircrews. The following examples clearly points out the need for general aviators to heed the message as well.
The “hurry-up” syndrome is a phenomenon better known to most pilots as “get there-itis“. NASA study on the phenomenon defines the syndrome as a situation where a pilot’s human performance is degraded by a perceived or actual need to “hurry” or “rush” tasks or duties for any reason.
The top two hurry-up incidents listed in the NASA report were deviation from ATC clearance, and deviation from company policy or procedure. The majority of incidents had their origins in the preflight phase, the next was in the taxi-out phase. What was even more significant was the finding that the human errors that occurred in the preflight phase manifested themselves later in the takeoff phase. For example, a distraction during preflight causes the pilot to omit an important checklist item, which has deadly consequences in the climb-out. A general aviation accident in Cockeysville, Maryland, in April 1984, is an excellent example that had its seeds in preflight errors with a pilot who was in a hurry to go.(to be continued)